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Unpopular opinion, but the PG visit to Hathras feels like yet another visual depredation of an already plundered people.
Would people of that class/caste be celebrated for coming and condoling with the Gandhis?
Would people of that class/caste be celebrated for coming and condoling with the Gandhis?
This photograph in particular reads horrific for me.
Consider the elements :
- the focus is on Priyanka Gandhi
- the mother / sister here is a dispensable prop - there is no personhood attributed excepty for Grief Incarnate
- the setting is elided altogether
Consider the elements :
- the focus is on Priyanka Gandhi
- the mother / sister here is a dispensable prop - there is no personhood attributed excepty for Grief Incarnate
- the setting is elided altogether
For starters a few questions we can ask as media:
1. If it was a condolence visit, as compared to a PR/political requirement, should we not have the brains to frame it as such?
2. Do we have a responsibility to prioritise stories ethically, or to follow a set narrative?
1. If it was a condolence visit, as compared to a PR/political requirement, should we not have the brains to frame it as such?
2. Do we have a responsibility to prioritise stories ethically, or to follow a set narrative?
For example, in this priority - does a politician& #39;s performance of grief which obviously, overwhelmingly serve to enhance her public profile get more precedence than a mothers (sister& #39;s) grief?
In practice - who gets to be in a visual foreground?
In practice - who gets to be in a visual foreground?
This is gendered in a complicated way.
Do we want to keep feeding the ravening beast that wants the female in the public eye to be seen as nurturing, maternal - even if that politician is clearly using it to her benefit, at the expense of someone& #39;s wretched grief?
Do we want to keep feeding the ravening beast that wants the female in the public eye to be seen as nurturing, maternal - even if that politician is clearly using it to her benefit, at the expense of someone& #39;s wretched grief?
We obviously have bigger questions that we are embroiled in answering (for instance, what is fascism? Is it okay to be a little bit fascist, as a treat?) but these are symptomatic of the same problem, if in a more understated way.
The problem is: can media do its own thinking, or are we comfortable outsourcing these ethical dilemmas to political PR machinery?
